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Prehispanic era

Coming from Chicomoztoc, the Xochimilcas tribe was the first of the seven Nahuatlaca tribes to arrive in the Anáhuac Valley. Upon their arrival, they settled on Cuahilama, a sacred hill located in the now town of Santa Cruz Acalpixca and from which the expansion of the population began towards lower lands and, later, the occupation of the lake through the construction of chinampas.

The Xochimilcas established their city in the 10th century and from that moment on, they extended their dominion to surrounding areas such as Tlayacapan, Xumiltepec, Chinameca, Mixquic, Tláhuac, Tepoztlán and Hueyapan, where they exercised political and economic power.

In 1353, the sacred city was moved to the island of Tlilan (place where the temple of San Bernardino de Siena is located today) and was divided into 15 calpullis (neighborhoods) that were inhabited according to the occupation of the inhabitants. In addition, there were four perfectly delimited areas: the main Calpulli; Chinancaltin or farmers' neighborhood; the Calpulli Pochteca or merchants' neighborhood and the Calpulli Ayahualtenco or fishermen's neighborhood.

Era of the Spanish Conquest and Colony

After the arrival of the Spanish, Hernán Cortés, following his plan to first conquer the towns surrounding Tenochtitlán, entered Xochimilco with his army on April 16, 1521, without taking into account the fact that the Xochimilcas were waiting for him, demolishing it in the tlatil or place occupied by the parish of Santiago Tepalcatlalpan, to later be rescued by one of its soldiers, a historical fact that served as the reason for the construction of said temple. After his recovery and in the middle of the siege of Tenochtitlán, he finally ordered a quick and surprising attack.

According to oral tradition, Cuauhtémoc himself came to Xochimilco to get help from men and canoes for the defense of Tenochtitlán, leaving a sabino tree as a reminder of his presence, which is still preserved in the current neighborhood of San Juan.

Once the Spanish conquest was completed, evangelization began in Xochimilco, which was in charge of the order of Franciscan friars; Thus, Apochquiyauhtzin, the last Lord Xochimilca, was baptized as Luis Cortés Cerón de Alvarado on July 6, 1522, and in exchange, he was granted the freedom to continue ruling under the supervision of the Spanish authorities.

By apparently accepting Christianity, the Xochimilcas were allowed to preserve some of their local traditions and their identity as a people. The population continued to be mostly indigenous, so the intervention of the children, grandchildren and descendants of the natives facilitated the control of the neighborhoods and towns dependent on this capital.

Xochimilco was a feeding bastion towards the capital and other riverside towns; In the 17th century, more than a thousand canoes entered daily, a flow considered unique in the world at that time and which it maintained for a long time.

Stage of the Independence Movement

With the passage of time, leaving its merely indigenous past, Xochimilco participated with its contingent within the Suriano Group around 1815, during the insurgent movement for independence, just after the execution of General José María Morelos y Pavón. From then until Independence was consummated in 1821, Xochimilco actively participated to achieve victory against the Royalist Army and the Colonial Government.

In the 1850s, the first steamship that provided service between Mexico, Mexicalzingo and Chalco was put into operation, giving the opportunity for another larger ship to be built in 1853. Unfortunately, the chronicle of steam navigation in Xochimilco around the year 1880 is lost, and with it the possibility of delving deeper into the subject.

Porfirian Stage

During the Porfiriato, one of the most important works for this place was the construction of the aqueduct that piped the springs of Xochimilco, to supply water to Mexico City, since it lacked sufficient supply. For this purpose, several bomb houses were built, of which the only one that remains intact is the one in San Luis Tlaxialtemalco, where the Acuexcómatl Environmental Education Center is currently located.

Stage of the Revolutionary Movement of 1910: The Pact of Xochimilco

Given the panorama left by the Aguascalientes Convention, Emiliano Zapata and Francisco Villa consider an alliance necessary to establish ways to oppose the government, so they meet for a meeting on December 4, 1914 at the house of Mr. Manuel Fuentes. in Xochimilco, located on Calle 16 de Septiembre No. 32, being the first time they saw each other in person, since Zapata did not appear at the Aguascalientes Convention.

They discussed the situation of their armies, poverty, their experiences in the campaign, their enemies, the cabinet and their ideas, so they made a pact which they called the “Xochimilco Pact”, in which Villa accepts the terms of the Plan. de Ayala, except for those who were against Francisco I. Madero, in addition to agreeing on the north-south military union and combat strategies, as well as who should govern the country.

The property where the meeting took place was acquired in 1926 by Doctor Santiago R. Velasco, who used it for commercial accessories; Later in 1939, Mr. Daniel Almanza bought the property and installed “La Cantina Reforma” in 1947, an establishment that, however, failed.

A few years later, in 1952, a bronze plaque alluding to the historical event was placed in front of the building to commemorate the Villa-Zapata meeting, which was later removed.

By Presidential decree on December 4, 1986, it was declared a Historical Monument so that year later, a group of people from - Town. Planning that never materialized.

To commemorate the CVII Anniversary of the Mexican Revolution, on November 20, 2017, the Delegation Headquarters of Xochimilco unveiled two life-size bronze statues of the revolutionary generals Emiliano Zapata and Francisco Villa, the work of the sculptor Juan Gómez. which were placed on a pedestal in the Delegational Esplanade showing the Generals with their rifle.

Modern Era

In 1929, Xochimilco was considered one of the sixteen Political Delegations of the Federal District (today Mexico City), being on January 15 of that same year, when Mr. Pablo Rosas Velasco was appointed as the first Delegational Head.

It should be noted that during this period of time until 1931, the towns of Mixquic, Tetelco and San Juan Ixtayopan subscribed to Xochimilco, and then separated, establishing the current geographical definition.

Around 1934, the Monument Protection Decree declared Xochimilco as a Typical and Picturesque Zone.

In 1955, the festival of the Most Beautiful Flower of the Ejido, a commemoration whose antecedents date back to pre-Hispanic times, was held for the first time in Xochimilco, and since then has been one of the most representative festivals in the region.

In 1966, the “Virgilio Uribe” Rowing and Canoeing Track was built, parallel to the Cuemanco canal, intended to hold competitions in these specialties within the framework of the 1968 Mexico Olympic Games.

For all these reasons and with the aim of rescuing and preserving its resources, the FAO (World Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations) took under protection, starting in 1986, the rural and lake area of ??Xochimilco as a prelude to that, the following year, on December 11, Xochimilco was declared “Cultural and Natural Heritage of Humanity” by UNESCO.

The official delivery of the Parchment was made in 2002, leaving the chinampas in writing permanently, together with the famous trajineras and the sale of ornamental plants, make up the main tourist attraction of this community.

Xochimilco, the magical lake where tourism, sustainability and folklore come together
The space known for its pleasure boats houses a nature reserve south of Mexico City that provides shelter, among others, to an endemic amphibian called the axolotl.

Lake Xochimilco, south of Mexico City, is the territory of the trajineras, boats that ply the canals, each with its name (Amor de los dos, Viva Amelia...) and its folkloric and garish decoration. They are a meeting point for families, groups of friends accompanied by mariachis or students with flea market speakers but eager to party. At the Cuemanco pier I board one of them with Rosalba del Valle, a member of the Olintlalli cooperative, and, with the help of a rower, we go in the opposite direction to the fun to see the hidden side of Xochimilco.

From a lost trajinera come howls of a Joan Sebastian song and tequila toasts: “uh uh uh uh uh, tamed wolf; your crazy lover I always want to be, uh uh uh uh uh, tamed wolf; your crazy lover, your faithful pet…” “Xochimilco is famous for this, but it is important for the other,” says Del Valle as we enter the silence and thickness of this natural reserve to appreciate the magnitude of the chinampas: surfaces of land conceived centuries ago on a vine of reeds. and mud, above the surface of the water, so that through filtration the roots could survive without the need for irrigation. “They are artificial islands whose objective was to provide food for the Aztec empire. The trees are hollow, their roots are better fixed, they support the chinampa and do not block the sun.”

Xochimilco means field of flowers. The teachings of pre-Hispanic agriculture and botany survive in traditional growing techniques that produce some of the best vegetables and flowers in Mexico City. UNESCO has declared 7,534 hectares of chinampera zone as world natural heritage in the delegations of Xochimilco, Milpa Alta and Tláhuac. There are few chinampas that continue to plant in an agroecological way with biofertilizers, without agrochemicals and with biofilters that purify the water. “The idea of ??an agrotourism cooperative began with the intention of rescuing the axolotl species, an amphibian endemic to Xochimilco,” explains Del Valle. "We want to preserve this way of life, we plant small beds of crops and offer flowers to the Jamaican market and products to alternative stalls, direct consumers or restaurants such as Chantico, Tetetlan or Antolina Condesa, aware that production is seasonal."

Already in the chinampa, one discovers the ancient techniques of sowing in grids (chapines), their ways of dealing with mud, manual transplants, the sun or the cold, and of protecting growing beds of radishes, cabbages, purple carrots, black tomato, rutabagas, broccoli, kale, pumpkin... Javier, Rosalba's brother, gives a taste of a tarragon flower, sweet like anise and with a spicy touch that is addictive, widely used in salads.


Xochimilco, a vestige of pre-Columbian life, on the verge of extinction

With its greenish waters and blue herons, the canals and island farms of 500 years.

However, the fragility of this vestige of pre-Columbian life was revealed last month, when a six-meter-deep hole opened in the canal bed, draining water and alarming hundreds of trajinera operators and farmers who depend on the roads. navigable for their income.

The hole intensified a latent conflict around some nearby wells, which extract water from the soil of Xochimilco and transport it to other places in the city. It also revived concerns about a process of decline, driven by pollution, urban encroachment and subsidence, which residents and experts fear could destroy the canals within a few years.

“This is a warning,” said Sergio Raúl Rodríguez Elizarrás, a geologist at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. “We are bringing the canals to the brink of extinction.”

Xochimilco, southeast of Mexico City, is home to more than 2,428 hectares of protected swamps, surrounded by dense streets. Here, farmers grow omero, corn and chard on chinampas, islands formed with a technique that dates back to the time of the Aztecs, from willows, lilies and mud.

Residents navigate the nearly 100-mile area in canoes, as they have done for centuries. On weekends, thousands of tourists eat outdoors and celebrate on trajineras, boats that are painted bright colors.

“This is the last link that connects us to our pre-Hispanic past,” Ricardo Munguía, an artist and tour guide, said recently as he moved through the morning fog in a motorboat. As he passed a field of broken cornstalks, a pelican flew past him and glided over the water, stopping on its wide wings.

“It would break our hearts if we were to lose this,” Munguía said.

As bucolic as the canals may seem, intense exploitation of the water's aquifers over the past 50 years has depleted the springs, so authorities have had to fill the waterways from a nearby wastewater treatment plant.

When the earth dries out, it sinks, cracks buildings and forms sudden craters like the one that appeared on January 24, 45 meters from a pier.

Boatmen at the pier, known as the Zacapa Embarcadero, said they noticed the hole when a whirlpool appeared, like the one formed when water goes down the drain in a bathtub. By the time engineers had blocked that part of the canal with sandbags several hours later, the water level had dropped about 25 centimeters.

Since then, the nearly 80 trajineras in Zacapa have been mostly empty, as tourists head to rival piers, the boatmen said... although they can still reach the canals in one direction. On a recent Sunday, the boats were lined up like rows of flashy shoes, but none of them had customers.

When the earth dries out, it sinks, cracks buildings and forms sudden craters like the one that appeared on January 24, 45 meters from a pier.

Boatmen at the pier, known as the Zacapa Embarcadero, said they noticed the hole when a whirlpool appeared, like the one formed when water goes down the drain in a bathtub. By the time engineers had blocked that part of the canal with sandbags several hours later, the water level had dropped about 25 centimeters.

Since then, the nearly 80 trajineras in Zacapa have been mostly empty, as tourists head to rival piers, the boatmen said... although they can still reach the canals in one direction. On a recent Sunday, the boats were lined up like rows of flashy shoes, but none of them had customers.

José Felipe García, the general director of Civil Protection of the Xochimilco delegation, said that the channel should return to normal by the end of February. By phone, he noted that the hole — which was filled in — was the result of subsidence and geological faulting beneath the area.

However, Rodríguez, the geologist, said it was part of a horrible pattern of human-caused collapses in the area.

Half a mile from the Zacapa pier, a crater almost two meters deep opened in November, splitting a main road and trapping two small buses, according to residents.

Eduardo Sandoval, a structural engineer who lives in the Santa María Nativitas neighborhood and heads an organization fighting for water rights, said the holes were a sign that the problems were “accelerating.”

The water in Nativitas has been a source of endless tension, according to Sandoval, as 130 houses have been damaged by subsidence. Trucks fill up at the local well and sell the water on the black market, but houses near the well may only have water in their taps for a few hours a day.

There are some scattered government initiatives to increase water supply, such as collecting rainwater in rooftop cisterns. However, the feat of providing water to the 22 million inhabitants more than two kilometers above sea level requires more creativity, experts said, such as reusing dirty water.

The water in the Xochimilco canals is contaminated. The treated water pumped into the canals from Iztapalapa contains heavy metals, said María Guadalupe Figueroa, a biologist at the Metropolitan Autonomous University.

The worst thing, he said, is that the illegal settlements in the chinampas dump wastewater into the canals, which affects fish and crops. Now, much of the tilapia caught from canals is used as an ingredient in cat food, and many farmers grow flowers instead of edibles.

Although building on chinampas is prohibited, more and more islands are being inhabited, residents and experts said, as small-scale farming becomes less competitive and requires the growth of residential spaces. There are cables that fall through smaller channels and supply power to cinder block houses without drainage or running water. A few feet from a house, beer bottles stuck out of the mud, and a rusty mattress spring served as a fence over the water's edge.

Juana Altamirano, who has lived for years in a plywood shack on what used to be a chinampa farmed by her father and grandparents, has bathrooms outside her house with signs saying “ladies” and “gentlemen” on the metal doors. . The wastewater, he said, “goes into the ground and does no harm,” an improbable statement since he lives on an island full of roots and mud.

Altamirano, 57, admits that the canal's water is contaminated. Her older grandchildren learned to swim in the canal, she said, but these days, the water gives swimmers rashes.

“Still,” he said, “we breathe fresh air.”

With each farmer who, like Altamirano's father, stops cultivating the chinampas, "we lose part of our identity," said Félix Venancio, an activist trying to protect the chinampas and communal lands, or ejidos, in San Gregorio, a district of Xochimilco.

Knowledge of cultivation in chinampas “goes from generation to generation,” said Venancio. “We are losing it.”

Dr. Figueroa said authorities were working on a new plan to preserve the swamps, so they brought together academics, farmers, businesses and different branches of government.

Xochimilco, which was designated a World Heritage Site by the United Nations in 1987, has had no shortage of conservation plans over the years, but they remain half-finished and funds “are lost along the way,” Figueroa said. “There is a lot of corruption.”

It is imagined that without a serious conservation initiative, the canals will be gone in ten to 15 years. However, much of the damage was reversible, he said, adding: “It's still a little paradise.”

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